A Letter to the Older Rich Brown

Dear Rich,

This is a letter from you at 44.  This is the letter to remind you that in the winter of 2011-2012 that you learned that your old age will be marked with arthritis and pain. 

You loved to run.  Running was a joy.  Nothing helped you unwind or give you more energy than lacing up your shoes, turning on the music and heading out the door.  You could run on pavement or trails, in the heat, or rain, or cold.  You could move, too!  You could easily post a seven minute pace - faster on the shorter distances like the 2 Mile Run for the Army Physical Fitness Test.  Nothing gave you greater pleasure than easily beating Cadets or young Soldiers and knocking down their swagger a notch or two. A couple of times you actually won medals and you used to finish in the top ten percent of your age group when you raced in 5k and 10k races. 

Up until December 2011, you could run for three, four, five miles at a time without aches or pains.  Then one day that pain in the right knee just didn't go away.  Remember how you used to always run through the pain - which seemed to go away after a mile?  Remember how, one day running on Ft. Bragg at lunch the pain just stayed with you the whole run?  Remember how, when you went to your brother's for Christmas that it radiated all the way up to your hip?  Remember how you were finally forced to that orthopedist had he showed you in black and white and shades of gray how you were losing the cartilage in your right knee? 

How many knee replacements have you had since then?  One?  Two?  If the pain is anything like the daily discomfort you feel in 2012, I do not envy you.  If it grows over time, I pity you.  Pain can color your whole day.  Hopefully the pain has gone away as you learned to compensate with other activities.

Did you take to biking?  At least you can get outside and feel the sun, listen to some music, and watch the landscape roll by.  At least you can do that with Lisa and the two of you can keep close(r) together than when you run.  I can't imagine you being sedentary.  You will not make a jolly fat man.  Whatever it is I hope you found something to keep you active.

Did you ever bite the bullet and run a marathon just to do say that you did?  How many ibuprofen and bags of ice did you go through?  What made you think that you had to cross that off your list?  I bet you walked funny(ier) after that. 

Oh, no - You don't walk with a limp do you?  The little one that accompanies you now from the parking lot to work is noticeable to others because they ask about it.  Do they let you to the front of the lines at Disney World?!  Right now you keep thinking it will go away.  A thought you've had for a few months now.  I know you thought that you'd be the perfect specimen of health in your 50s and 60s, but by 45 there were some reasons to doubt it. 

You always believed that running and fitness was an investment for the future of health and viability.  I hope that if you never got to run again that you found a way to continue to pay into that account.  It sucks to get old.  It sucks even more when you are still young enough to see old age as a far away destination - but one you look less forward to arriving at.

Maybe it will work out where the MRI will show that there is something else going on, something more repairable than not having enough cushion in your kneecaps.  

Who knows.

Who knows, maybe you are bouncing a grandchild on that knee right now.  Speaking of grandchildren, it is noteworthy to mention that today would have been your mom's 70th birthday.  It's hard to believe that she never met TJ and never knew Grant would even exist.  I don't think she took as good of care of herself as she could have.  You owe it to your children and their children to be around and love them with all that you can offer. 



Take care of yourself.